THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS It is impossible to speak or write about the South African War without mentioning the Concentration Camps.

A great deal of fuss was made about them, not only abroad, where all the enemies of England took a particular and most vicious pleasure in magnifying the so-called cruelties which were supposed to take place, but also in the English Press, where long and heartrending accounts appeared concerning the iniquities and injustices practised by the military authorities on the unfortunate Boer families assembled in the Camps.
In recurring to this long-forgotten theme, I must first of all say that I do not hold a brief for the English Government or for the administration which had charge of British interests in South Africa.

But pure and simple justice compels me to protest, first against the use which was made for party purposes of certain regrettable incidents, and, more strongly still, against the totally malicious and ruthless way in which the incidents were interpreted.
It is necessary before passing a judgment on the Concentration Camps to explain how it came about that these were organised.

At the time of which I am writing people imagined that by Lord Kitchener's orders Boer women, children and old people were forcibly taken away from their homes and confined, without any reason for such an arbitrary proceeding, in unhealthy places where they were subjected to an existence of privation as well as of humiliation and suffering.

Nothing of the kind had taken place.
The idea of the Camps originated at first from the Boers themselves in an indirect way.